The End of the Sun reaches Xbox with a village scanned from Polish folk museums

Most game worlds are modelled from scratch. The village in The End of the Sun was largely carried in from Polish open-air museums, and the first-person Slavic folklore adventure is now playable on Xbox Series X|S as well as PC.

The scale is the striking part. Writing on Xbox Wire, the team behind the game says roughly 80% of the objects you come across while exploring were photogrammetry scans of real artefacts, from tools to whole log cottages. Partners included Szymbark’s Open-Air Museum and the Grociarnia Ethnographic Museum in Jastrzębia.

Those objects are not set dressing. Some quests were written around an artefact the developers found on a museum trip: one has you working out how a traditional hand mill turns grain into flour, others hand you old tools for twisting rope or putting an edge on a knife. Optional “Learn More” spots explain what an unfamiliar item was for, so the history arrives through play rather than lectures.

You play the Ashter, a fire mage who tracks mythical creatures and arrives in a village torn by a rift in time. Bonfires act as portals between four seasons set years apart, and the team edited the scanned buildings to match: a cottage can look neglected in one era and freshly repaired in another. Floral wall paintings borrow from Zalipie, the village famous for its painted houses, and the ambient sound was recorded outdoors across a full year.

Real craftsmanship as a puzzle box is a rare pitch, and one that suits a slower, observant kind of player. The game first came out on Steam on January 29, 2025, where it is still sold for Windows, Mac and Linux, so console players are the ones catching up.

Reported by Xbox Wire, Steam. Compiled with AI tools.